Overcoming Setbacks: A Tale of Perseverance and Triumph with Beate Chelette

Hello, Freedom Nation. It's Jeff and I am here with another episode of The Freedom nation podcast. And on today's show, have you ever just thought about your business as a business owner and thought that you were just a little bit stuck and couldn't grow your business? Well, today I'm interviewing be out to show at Beate is a growth coach focused on helping people get their business going, especially early in, you know, early in the startup phase, getting past that first sale and getting to the point where you start to build and set goals and achieve those goals so that you can get your business off and off the ground. This is what she does for a living. So stay with us and we'll be right back after this with Beate Chelette.

FN Intro/Outro: Welcome to the Freedom Nation podcast with Jeff Kikel. On this show, Jeff shares his expertise in financial and retirement planning from a different perspective. Planning for Your Freedom Day, which is the first day that you wake up and have enough income or assets and do not have to go to work that day. Learn how to calculate what you need, how to generate income sources, and listen to interviews from others who've done it themselves. Get ready to experience your own Freedom Day.

Hello Freedom Nation, it's Jeff here once again for another episode of The Freedom nation podcast. And today, I have a friend from I don't even know where she's from right now. Let's be honest Angeles, Los Angeles.

That was a selective memory. I know you may.

I just tried to forget Los Angeles. I've heard that one before. It's about to show that she is a coach that really focuses on helping people grow their businesses. So we're going to hear a little bit about that today. So welcome to the show, my friend.

Thank you so much, Jeff, for having me. I think we're gonna have a blast.

Glad to have you on. She just came off of a three hour facilitation. So this is finishing, hopefully most of her day up with with some fun. So why don't we get started? Tell us a little bit about your story. First.

Yeah, so I'm originally from Germany, you may even hear still the accent and my name I think gives it away a little bit Beata. If you if you say like my mother, it'll be like, it'll be like you're yelling at me. It'll be the ATA. And, and I started my career in photography. So I've always been a creative and like, to the creative part about, about what I did a lot more and then realized very quickly, it was good at the business side of things. And as I went deeper into it, I realized I wasn't really a good photographer was a photo editor ended up being a photo editor at Elle Magazine. And then from there on, I emigrated to the United States started working for a company as a representative. And then I was laid off after in the middle of a massive recession. And after a major natural disaster, and then I had to figure out with six months old as my marriage is already falling apart on how am I going to make a living for myself, half freedom. And, you know, and somehow make it all work as a single immigrant mom in the United States in Los Angeles, no less. And that's when the crazy journey began.

Excellent. Well, let's talk about the crazy journey. So how did what was that next step? Because you're, you were at the low point at that point of okay, all these things happening to me, what was your next step?

Well, that was actually the beginning of the low points of many, many, many, many, many, many more low points to go. So what happened is I I started looking for advice and learning how to run a business, which I did not know. And got into I set up my own representation business and did photography, representation and stock photography, syndication, okay. And I was, you know, I was making my way, you know, things got better. And then every time I thought I made it, something would happen, like, then a photographer would say, I'm leaving, let's see if you want to sue me to get the money that I owe you. And so suddenly, I lose $300,000. And then there was, you know, fires, floods, riots. I mean, the whole nine yards, and every time I thought I was gonna get ahead, something happened. And then I get to the point, Jeff, I'm a million dollar business. I'm in the 4%. Nice. I'm going like, yes, I've done it. Finally. Yes, finally, it's humming along, things are good. And then I get this really weird feeling in the pit of my stomach that something wasn't right. And my key employee was doing something and she's being very secretive. And so I fired her and I find out I've fired her two weeks too late. Oh, she had got To close to my employee at my vendor, and then they had a business idea, which was my business without me. And then they called all my vendors and made invoices that I wrote payable to them. Oh,

Awesome. I think that's called theft. Yeah, it's called 50 and fraud.

Yes, exactly. And so, and then I called the client and I said, Hey, you know, what's going on here? Why is the invoice overdue? They said, Oh, we already paid it. I said, You didn't paid that pay me. It's like, No, we heard that you're withholding money, that you close your company that you're no longer doing that. And they are now running the show. I'm like, what? And so this time, I sued them because I needed to be right. So I'm, I'm in this massive lawsuit, Jeff. It goes on and on and on and on. And just as I'm like learning how lawsuits really work in the United States, meaning that lawyers are making a fortune by you writing, giving them money to write letters to other other attorneys. Yeah. That then respond and make a lot of money. And then it goes back and forth. And so I'm $130,000 in debt. And now I'm going like, well, this is this is kind of not good. But but but September comes around September's production season. I had a half a million dollars worth of production on the books, you know, Levi, Strauss, Wrangler. Like, we, you know, Mercedes Benz great clients, I'm going like, I'm gonna make it and then I wake up, and it is September 11th. One day, yeah. It's over. I mean, it was just over. Like, I literally lost my entire business in one day, one day, because after after that, there was nobody Jeff that was gonna go on a plane and fly from Europe, to Los Angeles in you know, while we're in the middle of this, this crazy terrorist attack. And then I was like, Man, this is getting pretty bad. And so I fought, I pretended nothing happened. And they settled the lawsuit when everything was paid. I had exactly 000.

But the lawyers all had Mercedes out of the deal.

Thank you. Exactly. And then I had to start all over again. And then I had this idea of running the stock photography, syndication, which I then built from the ground up. And as I'm building this, and I'm building it and building it, I'm going deeper into debt because I don't have any money, remember? So now I'm back $135,000 in debt, and I'm thinking, Man, this is getting this getting pretty dicey here. Now I have to I have to figure out how am I gonna bring money in so I'm flying to Germany, I'm visiting my dad, I'm going to a conference and then my dad had a stroke. Oh, no. But my dad did not have a stroke. My father had pancreatic cancer. Okay. And so six weeks later, he's dead. And, and so I'm at the grave in Nether Bavaria, right. And, and you just told me in the greenroom that you're going to Germany. So yes. It's just spectacularly beautiful. The valley, the baroque church behind you, my phone rings as we literally just put them in the ground. And it's my office telling me that we've just been served a notice. So now I'm losing the house. I fell to my knees, Jeff, I raised my fist, and I yelled at God. And I said, if you have a plan,

We get this work. And

What is it? Feel me in now, now would be a really, really good time because it's game over. Because I'm borrowing money to pay interest on borrowed money, the death spiral of everything. And now as I'm, as I'm going further down that spiral, I come back, I have to figure out how I'm going to I'm going to move how I'm going to get myself financially stable. I'm ready for the bankruptcy attorney, and then I get a letter from the White House. Okay, the White House. Okay, fine. I had written in my absolute desperation, because my former mother in law was such a nag. You need to write the President of the United States. If you if anybody can help you as the number one guy in the country, why don't you just go right to the top? Why don't you just ask the President of the United States to help you? Fine.

Okay, I'll write the letter.

I'll write the letter. I get a letter from the White House. Guess who's laughing now? She is. And Jaguar. I told you. And this letter put me in touch with a small business administration. Let's just be clear, the President of the United States never saw this letter. Now, of course, I'm intern yet whatever. But it put me in touch with a small business administration with a second in command. Why? Because they go like who is this nutcase woman that writes a letter to the President when they could have just picked up the phone and called me.

I got the meeting with the top guy in the SBA. And then they helped me to reshuffle my financials and got my Business Plan organized, which I had written. And then they found me a bank. It was restructuring my $135,000 in dead for a 10 year fixed loan. Okay, that freed up my line of credit. I was break even three months later, I was a world leader in my category. 18 months later, good God, and then a Bill Gates company comes and knocks on the door and says, can you tell us how you do it? I say like any decent woman would know. You want it? You buy it? Yeah. And they said, How much do you want? I said, a couple million. And they said, okay,

Then you're like, crap, I should have said five?

Well, I got the number that I want it. Yeah. So I did, I had a very specific number in mind. And I would not have, I would have not sold. If it was if I didn't meet my number, there's just no point. But when the number when the number was on the table, I knew it was time to sell.

That's brilliant. What a story, my gosh. So tell me this. I mean, you've had more adversity than most ever. What keeps you going, what kept you going through all that?

I have a very simple belief. I believe I'm a good person, I don't lie, don't cheat, don't steal, at the end of the day, the job cannot be on me. And if I look at this, today, if I look at the spiritual principles that I understand today, much better than I did, then when I'm there, it's by the book, I made a decision, I made a decision to build this business. I became the person I needed to be fake it till you make it to make that happen. So I became that business owner that needed to run this company that, you know, had a million dollars in sales, that was an equity based business that was ready for acquisition, I became that person. And I had no other plan. There was no plan B, there was no, what are you going to do? If that doesn't work? There was no option. That was it, it had to work. And it got so dark. And so so so deep in it's always darkest before dawn, you are in a in this test in this test, you know, missile range, basically, where you're being, you're being groomed into becoming this person you need to be to do that next thing that you're doing. And people forget that they say, Well, I can be all of that by who I am today. No, you're not you cannot. With what you know, today, you can run a global company.

How are you? How are you going to do that? Especially for not even running a regular company.

Thank you. Thank you. So what is the practice run? So you state the desire the universe as well? Here's your opportunity. And hint, it's not in a Tiffany box with a bow. Opportunity does not show up nicely wrapped. No opportunity shows up in a pile of you know what? And you go, what am I going to do with that? Right? What the President of United States just can you just like go away?

You do rise? Most people don't get a meeting with the SBA head. You did something right at that.

Yeah. Because Because because I wrote the letter. And because they got a letter from the White House to and it says will you please connect with with Mrs. B out to Gillette, and they said that is and I remember my first conversation is why didn't just pick up the phone call me. It never. It never it never even occurred to me. Yeah, I just wrote that letter. Because, you know, somebody else was pestering me about it.

You know what it worked out in the end. So let's talk a little bit about what you do today. So you you have a whole business focused around helping others.

Yeah, so today, I help business owners and people that really want to want to become one to find the shortcuts on how to get there. So I you know, as you heal by my story, I think I covered a large number of mistakes and adversity. So I feel that we can really help you know, in growth architecture, business owners, with the hands on stuff on how do you actually get this business to work, not with all the fluffy internet marketing thing. Not with one more thing to buy, not with the buying from stage, selling from stage, product launches, click funnel, whatever. That's all great when you have the model you can pull these things in. But where we really come in, we come in much earlier to say, how about before you spend any money, let's make the plan. And then you know what you need to get to get you there and you'll save yourself time and money. Because that's what freedom is. Freedom is the fastest way to get to the point in your life where you can do what you want because you don't have to worry about money and you can do what you want because you have the time.

That's awesome. Now, who are your typical clients that you like to work with?

My clients are pretty diverse. So I've done work for giants like Amazon, where I helped them on a facilitation. As we mentioned, you know, I'm, I'm a hired gun as a facilitator for some professional organizations that bring me in, and they have me facilitate their groups regularly. I work with a lot of business owners that want one out of two things. They either want to grow a business, or they have grown, and now they need to scale it.

Absolutely. written a book I saw on your website. So tell us a little bit about the book.

Yes, the book is happy woman, happy world, your foolproof fix to get from overwhelm to awesome is a book that I wrote after I sold my business. And I realized that there is a discrepancy between how men and how women do things. And I wanted to write the book on what the women's code actually is. And really helping women understand that we never will be able to address what's out there unless we address what's in here first.

Love it. So tell us a little bit about what other things are kind of upcoming in your world right now.

Yeah, so what's happening right now is that we are looked at, we looked at some of the dissatisfaction. And I know, Jeff, you will know a lot about this a lot of the dissatisfaction a lot of people that are working in corporations or in organizations are having with their jobs. Yeah, they just hate it. That trust is at an all time low, not just to political climate, but also also toward corporations. And that has a lot to do with at first they said, you know, it's COVID we laying you off, then they say Just kidding, we need people, then they gave you everything you wanted, then they gave you everything you wanted. And then they said, Just kidding, you're too expensive. Then they said Just kidding, we need to hire you back. And now they say on second thought, I don't think we need you because we need better q4 results. And so this whiplash that people have been experience is experiencing has resulted in literally hundreds of 1000s of people being out there on the market looking for things like certifications, and how do I start my own business. And so my team and I, we sat down, and we literally mapped out the plan. And we said we're going to build a certification agency, where people that want to be business consultants, people that want to be project managers, people that want to be executive assistants to help podcasters like, like you to promote, you know, to promote the podcast, because I build workflows and systems. That's, you know, I do that when I'm sleeping. And so help train people in the systems that I've built, certifying them, and then they can go out and in can make their dream of being a business owner happen. And not just that, but we give them something to immediately get started with.

That's awesome. Well, fantastic. Let's transition now to the Fast Five questions. You're ready? Yes. All right. Here we go. First question. You wake up in the morning business is totally gone. Now I realize this is a far stretch for you. But business totally gone. You have 500 bucks in your pocket, a laptop computer, a place to live? What are you going to do first?

The first thing is call business owners that are in my neighborhood. And if I didn't have a phone, I would walk there personally. And I'd immediately start picking up some coaching or consulting business by walking door to door I don't have any problem knocking on the door.

Love it not scared at all. All right now. So biggest business mistake you've ever had.

Running an e book business company with were thought that you could do coffee table books as ebooks, until I realized nobody ever walks into Jeff's house and says, Oh, look at that. There's your iPad. Can I take a look at your coffee table book collection?

That's where it's Here you go.

Thank you. Thank you Jeff.

Computer take a look at the books.

I mean, nobody ever. It was an idea that it was. It was such a good idea. I'm like, I'm doing it. I'm doing it until you realize wait, why is nobody doing it? Because it's an idiotic idea.

It was an idiotic it was just an idea before it's time. Now you can have you know, they've got those frames for NF T's and stuff like that, where you can put them up on the wall. You could put your whole book collection up on the wall and people could flip through your book collection.

That that would bring us back to Bill Gates the road ahead because that's what he originally had bought all the stock agencies for. Oh, really? That was his plan. Yeah, that was his plan to have these LED, you know, digital wallpapers where you could then you know, with the click of a button of every wallpaper and then he got in passing game with with Getty Images and then they had to, you know, see who is the tougher one?

Well, he has more money than they do. Yes. What's a good book that you'd recommend for our audience?

I would. One of my favorite book is the compound effect. Yes. Side Darren Hardy? Yep. Because it just takes a very simple concept of how small things compound to large things. And it explains it. It has fabulous illustrations, it's really clever. That is a must read book for anybody who, who just can't get themselves into gear.

I love that. What is a tool that you use in your business every day that you might recommend?

I am really big on productivity tools. So I use Asana, project management, and I have a particular way to set that up. I use a software a whiteboarding software called mural that I use with my clients, which I absolutely love. And what else do I use every day? Slack? I love slack, you know, because it allows me to get to people pretty quickly. So anything where we can communicate fast and effortlessly, and I can see what the team is doing globally. So everything on the productivity side, we always will be checking out

This fantastic. Alright, final question. And you've kind of touched on this already. But what is your definition of freedom?

I think there's a couple of ways to look at this. I think, number one, one piece of freedom is is to feel free yourself. And feeling free would mean that you have a definition outside of work. That is you. And I would say probably only about 2% of people I've ever met have a definition of who they are outside of what they do. So that would be that would be freedom. The ultimate freedom would be to say, I am who I am, irrespective of what I do, where I live and what I have. And I own that plus the freedom to do what I want when I want it. That would be the ultimate freedom.

I love it. Fantastic. Well, if somebody wanted to get a hold of you, what's the best way? Or find out more about you?

Yes. So number one, if you are if you have a business and you want to start and if you want to find out why your business is not growing away, it might be stuck. Go to our quiz, the growth blogger quiz at growthblockerquiz.com. Okay, find out what your number one business growth blogger is and what you can do about it, you'll get a report and we'll tell you exactly what the steps are. And you can if you heard something, raise it a must speak to this person, then go ahead go to uncoverysession.com and schedule a 15 minute complimentary session, make sure you mentioned Jeff, and the show so that we give you priority treatment. And then we'll talk about your business. And while we edit, will you do us a big favor? Will you please go wherever you pick up the show and give Jeff a five star review. Make sure you leave a short comment. And that is so critical because it gets picked up by the algorithms as engagement and engagement then pushes him further up so he can help more people to get to the freedom they so richly desire and deserve. And please share this episode with one other person.

Thank you, Beate, I appreciate it. Wonderful information. And I love your story. I mean, most people would have just given up and curled up in the corner and you just put your head down and went back at it every time. And you know, it's it's that stick to itiveness that got you to where you're at today. And you know, it's proud to see where you're at and how you're growing and now turning around and helping other people do the same.

Thank you. I appreciate it.

Appreciate you being on the show today, folks. Take her up on our offer, make sure that you mentioned the show so that you get the extra special treatment. And we do these shows for you every Tuesday and Thursday. So make sure that wherever you're at that you subscribe to the channel, give us a little up vote and like she said, pop a comment in there and that helps us with engagement so that the show pops up higher and helps other people. That's what we're trying to do. And that's what we want to do. So thanks a lot. And we will see you guys back here the very next time.

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